Unison Research Unico Nuovo - Integrated Hybrid Tube Amplifier
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Many years have passed since Unison Research started a small revolution in the world of hi-fi, presenting the market with its masterpiece—the Act integrated amplifier. Unison Research has since continued to run tests and experiments with the spirit of a technician in love with music, aspiring to find those hidden laws and secret that transform an amplifier into a magic box that can liberate music and give it vitality. We developed many new ideas so that the secret formula for a good amplifier could be completed, resulting in a new version of one of our most famous and beloved products. The Unison Research Unico Nuovo remains firmly at the vanguard of integrated amplifier design, offering audio performance at the highest level with pleasing aesthetics at an affordable price.
The Unico Nuovo ('New' in Italian) is a second generation integrated amplifier. For those familiar with the breed, the Nuovo is based on the original Unico 80 hybrid that was introduced as far back as 2001.
Despite its relative antiquity, the original amplifier had a timeless aesthetic quality that has hardly needed updating for the second decade of the millennium. It was a modern amplifier then, albeit one with classic qualities, and it remains so today.
The fundamentals of the Italian-made Nuovo haven't changed that much. It is still a hybrid design, with the preamp powered by thermionic valves, with a beefed-up MOSFET power stage in charge of the output. But there are significant changes.
The Nuovo continues to use a single triode stage for each channel, but the active devices have changed from an single triode ECC82/12AU7 to ECC83/AX7 twin-triode tubes. The higher gain tube, when carefully matched to the MOSFET power amp gain stage is claimed to improve performance and accentuate the valve-like qualities of the overall design.
A new biasing circuit, derived from phono step-up design practice, uses something called ionic bias which is said to uncover 'finer tonic nuances'. The bias point is self-adjusting, which eliminates an important point where performance drift would otherwise occur.
A further change is that the power amplifier MOSFET complement has been doubled (though headline power output is unchanged at 80 watts per channel), which combined with a change to the novel constant power supply design, offers an easier, more relaxed quality at elevated power levels and more dynamic headroom – claims which seem easily justifiable on test.
The amplifier has five line inputs, including one tape circuit, though one of the line inputs can be converted for use as an MM/MC phono input (it's already identified as such, though it operates as a standard line output unless this extra cost option is implemented). Two pairs of loudspeaker terminals are also provided for bi-wiring.
Specifications
- Output Power: 95W RMS/ 8Ohm
- Frequency response: -0.1dB @ 10Hz, -0.5dB @ 100kHz
- Input Impedance: 50kOhm // 47pF
- Sensibility: 260mV RMS
- Input stage: Pure A Class, parallel Valve stage, ECC83/12AX7
- Output stage: Dynamic A Class POWER MOSFET complementary
- Input: 5 Line RCA (1 phono optional)
- Line Output: 1 tape, 1 sub (with volume control)
- Output Connector: 4 + 4 bi-wiring
- Feedback factor: 10dB
- THD: 0.15% @ 10W/1kHz
- Power consumption: 400W max
- Size: 43.5cm x 9.5cm x 43cm
- Weight: 16kg
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